To get unprecedented access to the Israel lobby’s inner workings, undercover reporter “Tony” posed as a pro-Israel volunteer in Washington.

The resulting film exposes the efforts of Israel and its lobbyists to spy on, smear and intimidate US citizens who support Palestinian human rights, especially BDS – the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.

Censored by Qatar

The film was suppressed after the government of Qatar came under intense pressure not to release it – ironically from the very same lobby whose influence and antics the film exposes.

Clayton Swisher, Al Jazeera’s head of investigations, revealed in an article for The Forward in March that Al Jazeera had sent more than 70 letters to individuals and organizations who appear in or are discussed in the film, providing them with an opportunity to respond.

Only three did so. Instead, pro-Israel groups have endeavored to suppress the film that exposes the lobby’s activities.

In April, Al Jazeera’s management was forced to deny a claim by the hard-right Zionist Organization of America that the film had been canceled altogether.

In June, The Electronic Intifada learned that a high level source in Doha had said the film’s indefinite delay was due to “national security” concerns of the Qatari government.

The film shows footage of the very same ex-military intelligence officer, Sima Vaknin-Gil, claiming to have mapped Palestinian rights activism “globally. Not just the United States, not just campuses, but campuses and intersectionality and labor unions and churches.”

She promises to use this data for “offense activity” against Palestine activists.

Jacob Baime, executive director of the Israel on Campus Coalition, claims in the undercover footage that his organization uses “corporate level, enterprise-grade social media intelligence software” to gather lists of Palestine-related student events on campus, “generally within about 30 seconds or less” of them being posted online.

Baime also admits on hidden camera that his group “coordinates” with the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs.

Baime states that his researchers “issue early warning alerts to our partners” – including Israeli ministries.

Baime’s colleague Ian Hersh admits in the film to adding Israel’s “Ministry of Strategic Affairs to our operations and intelligence brief.”

“Psychological warfare”

Baime describes how his group has used anonymous websites to target activists.

“With the anti-Israel people, what’s most effective, what we’ve found at least in the last year, is you do the opposition research, put up some anonymous website, and then put up targeted Facebook ads,” Baime explains in part three of the film.

“Canary Mission is a good example,” he states. “It’s psychological warfare.”

The film names, for the first time, convicted tax evaderAdam Milstein as the multimillionaire funder and mastermind of Canary Mission – an anonymous smear site targeting student activists.

Suppressed film

In March, The Electronic Intifada published the first details of what is in the film.

We reported that it showed Sima Vaknin-Gil claiming to have leading neoconservative think tank the Foundation for Defense of Democracies working for her ministry.

The undercover footage shows Vaknin-Gil claiming that “We have FDD. We have others working on” projects including “data gathering, information analysis, working on activist organizations, money trail. This is something that only a country, with its resources, can do the best.”

As noted in part one of the documentary, the existence of the film and the identity of the undercover reporter became known after footage he had shot for it was used in Al Jazeera’s The Lobby – about Israel’s covert influence campaign in the UK – aired in early 2017.

Since then, Israel lobbyists have heavily pressured Qatar to prevent the US film from airing.

“Foreign agent”

Clayton Swisher, Al Jazeera’s head of investigations, first confirmed in October 2017 that the network had run an undercover reporter in the US Israel lobby at the same time as in the UK.

Swisher promised the film would be released “very soon,” but it never came out.

Multiple Israel lobby sources told Israel’s Haaretz newspaper in February that they had received assurances from Qatari leaders late last year that the documentary would not be aired.

Swisher’s op-ed in The Forward was his first public comment on the matter since he had announced the documentary.

In it, he refutes Israel lobby allegations about the film and expresses frustration that Al Jazeera had not aired it, apparently due to outside pressure.

Several pro-Israel lawmakers in Washington have piled on more pressure by pushing the Department of Justice to force Al Jazeera to register as a “foreign agent” under a counterespionage law dating from the 1930s.

The Israel lobby goes to Doha

They have included some of the most right-wing and extreme figures among Israel’s defenders in the US, such as Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz and Morton Klein, the head of the Zionist Organization of America.

Swisher wrote in The Forward that he ran into Dershowitz at a Doha restaurant during one of these visits, and invited the professor to a private viewing of the film.

“I have no problem with any of the secret filming,” Swisher says Dershowitz told him afterwards. “And I can even see this being broadcast on PBS” – the US public broadcaster.

Yet it appears that Israel lobby efforts to quash the film were successful – until now.﻿

Watch final episodes of Al Jazeera film on US Israel lobby

He discovered a network of organizations acting as fronts for the Israeli state to spy on, disrupt and sabotage USsupporters of Palestinian rights – especially BDS, the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.

In the final two parts of of the film, Tony gets a deeper look at Israel’s covert influence campaigns during his internship for The Israel Project.

Watch parts three and four in the videos embedded above and below.

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The Electronic Intifada is releasing the leaked film simultaneously with France’s Orient XXI and Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar, which have respectively subtitled the episodes in French and Arabic.

In part three, Al Jazeera interviews Bill Mullen, a professor of American Studies at Purdue University in Indiana, and a leading activist in the BDS movement.

In the film, Mullen describes the campaign as an attempt to destroy his marriage. His wife, also a professor, was sent a link to one of the sites.

The smear campaign seems to have been manufactured by Israel’s agents in the US.

“These people will do anything”

“One of the [anonymous] accounts explains that in the process of supposedly putting my hand on her, I’d invited her to a Palestine organizational meeting. And I thought, you’re sort of putting your cards on the table there,” Mullen says, explaining how he came to realize that pro-Israel actors were behind the smears.

Mullen recounts how the anonymous websites also used the name of his daughter, which he says was the worst moment for him, when he realized “these people will do anything, they’re capable of doing anything.”

A Students for Justice in Palestine activist who Mullen worked with, speaks anonymously in an interview with Al Jazeera.

She too was targeted by an anonymous smear site, which falsely claimed she engaged in “partying, drinking” and “promiscuity.” She recounts how this led to tension and upset at home, with her parents telling her to end her SJP involvement.

Smear tactics have been common features of “advocacy” for Israel for decades. Israel lobbyists know they cannot win open debate on the actual issues.

Such attempts to target and sabotage activists’ personal lives represent an escalation in tactics in recent years, led by Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs.

These tactics are more reminiscent of Israeli intelligence services’ actions against Palestinian resistance organizations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with the usage of blackmail, disinformation, rumors and sabotage.

This is not entirely surprising considering that the Ministry of Strategic Affairs is largely staffed by Israeli spies.

“It’s psychological warfare”

He described his approach as “modeled on General Stanley McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq,” explaining that they “copied a lot from that strategy that has been working really well for us, actually.”

Although Baime seems confused about the country – the US general’s “counterinsurgency” effort was focused on Afghanistan, not Iraq – McChrystal’s strategy emphasizes “offensive information operations.”

In episode three, Baime explains how his organization applies this against “the anti-Israel people” by putting “up some anonymous website” along with targeted Facebook ads.

Baime explains that as a result activists “either shut down or they spend time responding to it and investigating it, which is time they can’t spend attacking Israel.”

“It’s psychological warfare, it drives them crazy,” he claims.

He later states that the Israel on Campus Coalition has a budget of some $2 million for “research” for such smear campaigns alone.

“The foundation that AIPAC sat on is rotting”

Israel’s consul-general in Atlanta is seen in undercover footage complaining that “the major problem for Israel is with the young generation of the Black community.”

The Israel Project’s successful attempts to influence American mainstream media are also detailed, with former CNN journalist Jim Clancy describing it as “propaganda.”

Also in episode four, Tony goes along for the ride with a comically unenthusiastic group of young, conservative think tank fellows, who are compelled by their bosses to join a protest against a Students for Justice in Palestine conference.